


In Transit

by suburbanmotel



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, A NIght in the Life, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Blow Jobs, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Dream interpretation, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fixit Story, Fluff and Angst, Fucking Goddamn Bubble Life, Hand Jobs, Hockey, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Injuries, Planes trains automobiles and golf carts oh my, Sharing a Bed, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, True Love, kind of, supportive boyfriends, the Dallas Stars don't win the Stanley Cup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:54:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suburbanmotel/pseuds/suburbanmotel
Summary: //The night before what ends up being the final game, Jamie doesn’t even dream about winning the Stanley Cup. He dreams aboutTyler. Because of course he does.//
Relationships: Jamie Benn/Tyler Seguin
Comments: 30
Kudos: 104





	In Transit

//

in transit: in the process of being transported  
If people or things are in transit, they are travelling or being taken from one place to another.

/

“But there was something about you that made me think of sparks and motion.”  
_~ David Levithan, The Lover’s Dictionary_

//

“Guess how many days we’ve been here,” Tyler says on what ends up being their second last night in the room. In the hotel. In the hunt. In the Fucking Goddamn Bubble. Jamie looks at him.

“Uh,” he says.

It’s the end of September but it could be any month here. It could be snowing outside. There could be a monsoon. Hail as big as baseballs. Dark for 23 hours of the day. They wouldn’t know, cocooned in miles of disturbingly patterned red carpet down hallways containing doors and more doors, doors leading to rooms and elevators and stairways going up and stairways going down, stairways leading to other floors of more weird carpet and more doors leading to other rooms and elevators and stairs. The world could have ended outside but in here it’s quiet and still and everything smells like white soap and boiled potatoes.

Tyler is standing in front of the bathroom mirror. He’s wearing a pair of black boxers and nothing else. A long strand of mint-flavoured, no-shred white dental floss dangles from one hand. He’s rocking back and forth, up on the balls of his feet and down, up and down. It’s hypnotic. Jamie can’t look away.

The room is beige. The lighting is bad. It creates weird ugly angles on the floor and up the walls and across their faces. It makes Jamie look like he has the plague, which is totally the wrong thing to say and he realizes it the second he says it, the first and only time. Tyler, of course, still looks good, because he always looks good. Jamie is sitting in the middle of the bed, legs splayed wide. He’s wearing an old T-shirt and threadbare shorts and watching Tyler, who’s not supposed to be in here. They’re supposed to stay in their own rooms because that’s Bubble Protocol. That’s dumb. No one does that. Tyler is always in here. Tyler sleeps here most nights unless one of them is too sore or too grumpy for company. Jamie is generally grumpy though, and Tyler is always sore right now so they make it work most nights because they’ve learned to _compromise_ which means Tyler lets Jamie not talk and Jamie lets Tyler bounce and talk enough for the both of them.

Tyler is bouncing right now and Jamie is still watching, mouth gone dry. Jamie can smell him in the sheets even though they’re changed and bleached within an inch of their lives every single day.

“I don’t know,” Jamie says at last. He stares openly at Tyler, the long leanness of him, the way the muscles bunch and clutch in his back, the curls of his damp hair down his neck and spilling over his forehead. He looks at the backs of his knees, the too-sharp angle of his elbows and shoulder blades. Tyler pulls the floss through his bottom front teeth and Jamie looks at that, too.

There are things that Tyler knows that Jamie doesn’t, and the other way round. They divide these things that they know and don’t know between them pretty evenly, weird facts about sports and dogs, weather and history. Family birthdays and anniversaries, when the cars need oil changes. Who is due for a dental checkup. How long they’ve been in the Fucking Goddamn Bubble.

“Sixty-three days,” Tyler says. He sounds proud, like this is some complicated puzzle that he’s solved, like he’s been marking the days off a calendar with a neat little X. Maybe he has.

“Huh,” Jamie says. He finally tears his eyes away from Tyler’s back and stares at his hands. His own hands, not Tyler’s. For the past [63] days, then, Jamie has bitten and peeled all the skin from around his nails, picking and biting until everything there is red and raw. Tyler, when he catches him, takes Jamie’s hand in his, carefully examines each fingertip and frowns and sighs. Then he kisses each one, one by one by one while Jamie watches, silent, mouth slightly open. He doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t know what to say.

“Stop that,” Tyler says now, watching from the mirror. He keeps watching until Jamie takes his finger out of his mouth and puts it in his lap.

“I stopped,” Jamie says and Tyler nods, satisfied. Then he says, “Come to bed. Your teeth are clean enough.”

The bad light is shut off and the beige fades into brown and then a dull black. Tyler takes up more space than Jamie ever expects, even after all this time, and moves around a lot, too, skin under the covers igniting sparks beside Jamie as he twists and turns and tries to get comfortable. Jamie lies on his side, head on his bent arm and waits.

“This time tomorrow it could all be over,” Jamie says. This isn’t a secret but it feels kind of dirty, saying it out loud like this, like some kind of betrayal. If they lose tomorrow, yes, it’s all over. If they don’t lose, well.

Tyler nods and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth then lets it go. He looks like he wants to say something. Jamie waits. Tyler moves again, turning to face him, knees drawn up and bumping against Jamie’s under the scratchy, bleachy sheet.

“Hey,” Tyler says. He presses his toenails into the thin skin of Jamie’s ankles.

“Ow,” Jamie says with no heat. Then he adds, “Fuck.”

“Oh did that hurt?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says. “Maybe instead of spending so much time _flossing your teeth_ you should try _trimming your_ —”

“Kiss me,” Tyler says.

Jamie kisses him on his right eyebrow first, to be an asshole, but Tyler laughs so that’s good. Then Jamie kisses him on the mouth, soft soft. He doesn’t mean to start anything. Tyler is hurt and hurting. Jamie is trying not to think about it, and Tyler doesn’t talk about it because that comes later. Right now is now and tomorrow is a game that means more than Jamie is also willing to think about. _Now_ is what he’s thinking about. And Tyler’s mouth is so soft and so warm and he’s moving under Jamie’s hands like something fluid and electric, peeling off his boxers and pressing all up against the length of Jamie and who can resist that? Who, Jamie wonders, would even try? Not him. He kisses his way down Tyler’s body, all that skin, all those bones, careful of bruises and bad hips, licking at his groin and swallowing down his dick, hot and heavy, holding it against his tongue and wishing he could stay like this for a few days, just a few days more, please, whatever hockey gods are in charge, let him have a few more days of these scratchy bleachy sheets and all of Tyler’s warm skin and his soft moans and his long fingers tangling in Jamie’s hair, knees knocking Jamie’s shoulders as he comes and grins and grabs for Jamie between one breath and the next.

“Your turn,” Tyler says, breath hot in Jamie’s mouth. “You, you, you.”

And Jamie lets him because what idiot wouldn’t? Moving soft and electric under Tyler’s fingers and the wet heat of his magical mouth? Jamie has never said no, not to that face and those hands and those lips and Tyler laughing in absolute gleeful flush of success every time Jamie comes so fast and sighs because it’s over too soon.

Sometimes Jamie forgets, in the middle of it, where he is. With his head thrown back and his back arched and his toes curled. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Being transported to another place, another reality. He never forgets who is with him, though because that’s impossible. That mouth, those hands, that hair, that voice.

Their ragged breaths catch in their chests and on the tips of Tyler’s teeth and under Jamie’s bitten nails. The room smells like bleach and shampoo and sweat. Jamie wonders what housekeeping thinks. He wonders if the room will still smell like them a week from now, a month. Tomorrow could be the last day, he thinks, one way or another.

“Sleep,” Jamie says into the side of Tyler’s head. His curls smell like cheap hotel soap and hot skin.

“Sweet dreams,” Tyler says, then licks Jamie’s chin, laughing at the ridiculous thick beard, then just under his chin, that soft spot right there, the one that always gets him what he wants. He twists and turns then, trying to find the best sleeping position, little ticks and twitches for another good 15 minutes because he never stops moving, not completely, not even in sleep, not even with Jamie’s heavy, steadying hands settling on his back, his hips, the flat planes of his stomach. Not even then.

“ _Settle_ ,” Jamie says at last and Tyler sighs and tries. He really does. Jamie sighs, too, hard, squeezes Tyler’s hip, harder.

“Ow,” Tyler says and even though Jamie can’t see his face, he knows he’s grinning. “You love me.”

“Yeah,” Jamie says, biting at the back of Tyler’s neck, below the still slightly damp hair. “I do.” Fuck, he does.

When Jamie does finally tumble over the knife edge of sleep it’s to the strange and familiar lullaby of Tyler’s scent and skin and self-satisfied smile.

 _Sweet dreams_ , Tyler had said, like some kind of goddamn order or threat or dare, and Jamie is nothing if not competitive. Ok then.

The night before what ends up being the final game, Jamie doesn’t dream about winning the Stanley Cup. Not exactly. He doesn’t dream about celebrations, or victory cries, or tears or booze or glory. He dreams about long, lean muscles and movement, about the planes and buses that got him here, about the past and present and future. He dreams about laughing and teasing and fighting and fucking and the constant sensation of movement under his skin.

So, Jamie doesn’t dream about winning the cup. He dreams about Tyler. Because it turns out he loves Tyler more than he loves hockey, because of course he does.

//

This is a boat, Jamie thinks.

It’s a beautiful day and he’s in a boat and Tyler’s in the boat, too. They’re in a boat together and they’re floating on the water and it’s sunny and slightly overcast and it’s warm and they’re outside in a boat on the water.

“Hey,” Jamie says. He feels lazy and good, leaning back against the warm wood, the sun on his face. This is no Fucking Goddamn Bubble, that’s for sure. Tyler, sitting in the bow, turns and smiles at him, wide and open, and Jamie’s heart slams against his ribs for about the millionth time since they met.

“Hi you,” Tyler says. There’s no land in sight which should normally, under normal circumstances, fill Jamie with terror, but he doesn’t feel scared at all.

“Is this a dream?” Jamie asks.

Tyler shrugs, one shoulder. “I dunno. I’m just along for the ride, I think,” he says.

Then Tyler is rowing. He’s rowing their little boat like he’s been doing it all his life, arms moving smoothly and rhythmically, face calm and contented. Jamie doesn’t ask where the oars came from because of course there are oars. How else are they going to get back to land without oars?

Water is one of Jamie’s favourite things in this world, growing up surrounded by the ocean, the salt and the spray and the vast expanse spreading out beyond his home. It ranks right up there with both hockey and Tyler. Sitting in this tiny boat with Tyler sitting across from him, bobbing gently on water the colour of blue chalk fills him with peace. This is a dream though, right? It has to be a dream. Water is never this colour and Tyler doesn’t _row_.

There’s only so much water in the world and Jamie thinks all of it might be here in _this world_ , in this dream, right here. It stretches wide and long and blue like the colour of a wild rainy stormy sky from his childhood, building over the Pacific outside the window. Water everywhere should make him nervous, should scare him, but Tyler is here and he’s in control and he’s smiling and the little boat rocks and bobs and Jamie leans back and tilts his face to the sun.

Tyler reaches down into the water and splashes a handful in Jamie’s direction. Tyler stands and strips off his shirt and his shorts and dives neatly into the water, barely a ripple or splash. And then Tyler doesn’t come back up.

Jamie sits for a minute, stunned and paralyzed. The water is completely still and he’s completely alone. He stands and dives in, too, cutting into water clean as a knife blade, water in his eyes and ears and mouth, kicking and cutting through water to find Tyler but he can’t see anything at all. His lungs burn and blaze and he cough and blinks and—

—now they’re standing shoulder to shoulder on the deck of a ferry, rocking in wild weather, heading home. He knows they’re heading home, across the Strait of Georgia to Victoria. The wind is fresh and there’s salt on his lips. He closes his eyes and feels like he might cry.

Tyler is smiling at him so wide and so sweet and open. Jamie’s heart expands in his chest. Expands and contracts suddenly, a little jolt that almost wakes him up. He doesn’t want to wake up, though. This is too perfect, too good.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” Jamie says, taking Tyler’s hand. It’s cool and firm in his.

“Well, you invited me,” Tyler says.

“I did?” Jamie says. He supposes he must have. How else would they be here?

Tyler kisses him on the cheek.

“Just to say,” Tyler says, “I love you, no matter what. I think you should know.” He says it so simply and plainly that Jamie can’t help but believe him. There’s no reason not to.

“No matter what _what_?”

Tyler laughs.

“Just there’s so much more,” Tyler says, waving his arms around, indicating, Jamie supposes, the water, the land in the distance, the sky, them. There’s a lot of water. Jamie loves the water. He loves swimming and boating and fishing and he fucking loves Tyler.

“So much more _what_?” Jamie says.

“Don’t forget, is all,” Tyler says. “It doesn’t matter as much as you think.”

There are clouds gathering and a storm is brewing. And a clap of thunder and the inevitable turn and tumble of a boat in a vast expanse of sea and the waves build until the boat lists and they turn and tumble and fall and Jamie can’t find Tyler at all in all that water.

This might be the best or worst idea he’s ever had. There’s no in between. But with Tyler, there never is.

//

Jamie jerks awake and lies in the dark in the beige room of the fucking Marriot Bubble, something like panic gripping at his throat. Tyler is curled beside him, breathing deep, snoring with every second inhale. Jamie lies there, counting, staring, willing his heart to slow the fuck down, until, as always, Tyler senses he’s awake and blinks at him, owlishly.

“Wha?” he says, mouth thick and cottony.

“I just had the craziest fucking dream,” Jamie says. Tyler moves, muscles twisting and stretching under warm skin.

“Yeah?”

“ _Yeah_.”

Jamie’s poor heart is pounding. He can feel it in his ears, behind his eyes. He’s vibrating with it. He’s sure Tyler can feel it under his skin, triphammering along. Maybe he’s having a stroke. Maybe that’s what this is.

“Nerves, maybe, huh?” Tyler shifts again and places one of his giant hands on Jamie’s chest, over the grey T-shirt, his lucky grey T-shirt, the one that now smells slightly sour but is soft against his skin, soft under Tyler’s palm.

“Whoa,” he says, kind of in awe of Jamie’s heart that is actually starting to pain him.

Jamie’s not nervous. Not about the game, at least. He swallows a few times, throat working and sticking.

“You ok?” Tyler says. He’s fading, mouth and lips moving against the skin of Jamie’s arm. Jamie wants to do something. He wants to get up. He wants to leave this hotel room. He wants to stay here forever.

“Yeah,” he says instead of picking Tyler up and throwing him over his shoulder, running and running somewhere. “Yeah. Sorry. Go to sleep. Go _back_ to sleep. Sorry.”

Tyler sighs, just a small soft exhale of breath.

“Don’t be sorry,” he says. “Dreams can be…like really _real_ , you know?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says. Then he laughs. “Go to sleep.”

“You too.”

Jamie laughs again, but quiet.

Sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep _sleep—_

//

This is a car, Jamie thinks. 

This is a car and Jamie is driving. It’s not _his_ car, at least not the one he has in Dallas. It’s nondescript, not fancy, not plain, just a car with grey interior and a smooth steering wheel under his palms. There’s a road ahead, long and grey and straight and trees on either side. He could be anywhere. When he looks over, Tyler is in the passenger seat. This is good. That’s where Tyler _should_ be. Jamie’s not sure where they’re going, but he’s in charge. He’s got his foot on the gas and his hands on the wheel and he’s in charge. He’s decided he doesn’t like dreams where he’s not in charge.

“Hey you,” Tyler says.

“Hey,” Jamie says back. It’s his dream. He can be as dumb or eloquent as he wants.

“Where we going?” Tyler asks. He’s too awake and too bright, all but hanging his head out the window.

“Uh,” Jamie says. He’s not sure where they’re going. The landscape is unfamiliar in shape and colour. No mountains that could be back home, no dusty, flat plains that could be Texas. This is a dream, he reminds himself. He doesn’t know why he’s dreaming like this right now, but maybe he was a bit premature in thinking he was actually in charge.

“You ok?” Tyler says. He’s rolled his window down and he’s _smoking_. Literally. Jamie stares at him. Tyler is smoking and he looks hot as fuck. Tyler takes a long, long drag on a cigarette, staring at Jamie the entire time, dark and deliberate. Then he exhales, smoke filling the car. It smells like boiled potatoes. Jamie might have an erection. He’s not sure. He keeps staring at Tyler’s lips and fingers.

“You like that,” Tyler says and it’s not a question. I like that, Jamie thinks, but he won’t say it. He’ll never say it.

“I just wanna play hockey,” Jamie says instead. He’s tired and he’d like to sleep. Except he’s already asleep.

“Look,” Tyler says, gesturing at the windshield, at the road in front of them. Jamie is driving. He should probably be paying attention. “ _Look_. You’re not looking.”

Jamie looks.

This is a train, he thinks.

He’s on a train, that undeniable rocking and rolling, clicking and clacking, the trip he took across Canada when he was a kid. Mountains, valleys, buildings, flat golden fields passing in the blink of an eye, way too fast. A conductor takes his ticket. The conductor is Tyler, because of course it’s Tyler.

“I’m really tired,” Jamie says. He tries not to whine about it. Conductor Tyler tilts his head and looks genuinely sympathetic.

“There are beds up ahead,” Tyler says, and there are. There’s a sleeper car. Small and dark and contained. Jamie finds another Tyler there, curled up and facing Jamie who slides in and moves close, puts a hand on the dip of Tyler’s waist, the warm skin there just under the edge of his shirt. Just like real life, Jamie thinks. 

Tyler in dress clothes, in warm-up clothes, Tyler naked, in between the sheets.

“Hey,” Jamie says. “This is nice.” The rocking of a train is different than the rocking of a boat but still familiar and still comforting.

“You’re gonna be so tired in the morning,” this Tyler says, touching his cheek, his chin, his throat.

“We could win it all,” Jamie says. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Yeah,” Tyler says. “But you need to sleep.”

“I’m _trying_ ,” Jamie says and he feels absurdly like crying. Doesn’t anyone get that he’s _trying his best_?

He’d really like to just dream about winning the fucking Stanley Cup. That would be a good fucking dream. He thinks about winning and about being able to say he won the fucking cup even though he couldn’t sleep for shit and his team was falling apart and his boyfriend was in constant pain and he couldn’t help him. He thinks about retiring without winning and _dying_ without winning and he really really doesn’t want to think about dying right now.

“There’s always some element to death in dreams,” Tyler says, not sounding like Tyler at all. “Falling asleep is kind of like dying, when you think about it. Letting yourself fall off the edge like that without knowing if you’ll ever wake up again.”

Jamie kind of wants to tell him to shut the fuck up but of course he doesn’t, he wouldn’t, ever.

“What if we get old and can’t play together anymore?” he says instead.

Tyler smiles. “Well I hope we get old.”

Jamie doesn’t want to stop playing hockey and he doesn’t want to get old and he definitely doesn’t want anyone to die, especially not Tyler, and he knows that’s childish and stupid but it’s his fucking dream isn’t it?

“Better than the alternative,” his mom always said about aging. When he was little, he never got what it meant. Better than what alternative?

“Death, dummy,” Jordie said once, whacking him in the back of his head, hard. “Getting old is better than dying, right?”

He supposed it was. He hoped it was because getting old fucking sucked. If he was hurting now, in his 30s, how was he going to feel in 10, 20, 30 years? How was Tyler going to feel?

The train rocks him to sleep with Tyler’s hands pressed into his chest and Tyler’s breath on his neck and when he opens his eyes again he’s in a golf cart and Tyler is there because of course no golf outing would be complete without Tyler. This is a golf cart, he thinks as he hits a ball into the ocean, this is a bicycle as they tour a city they’ve never been to before, this is them walking, holding hands, this is them getting old together, this is them with walkers, with wheelchairs. This is constant motion slowing down with the passing of time this is the inevitability of age.

Fuck.

Jamie’s always had pretty vivid dreams but holy shit. He’s been dreaming about winning the Stanley Cup since he was 12 years old. It’s always been there on the horizon, a shiny silver point sometimes visible sometimes shimmering like those pools of watery heat on desert roads in movies and in dreams. A mirage. A vision. A glimmer of hope that hovers, enticing, until he gets close and then it vanishes.

“Hey,” Jamie says to the Old Tyler in his dream who is smiling at him, so very fond and so slightly blurry. “I think I’d like to wake up now.”

//

When he wakes up this time he’s on his side, hands clutched in fists against his chest, hairline damp with sweat. Tyler is sleeping beside him long, broad back curved, the bumps of his spine exposed and elegant, white and vulnerable. Jamie lies there in the dark and stares at that skin, at the history it holds. When he stops trembling a bit he puts a hand just under Tyler’s shoulder blade, fingers curling around his rib cage.

“Wassmatter,” Tyler says, rolling over a bit and squinting at Jamie. He’s all tangled up in the sheets and in the distilled red light of the clock on the table he looks slightly demonic.

“I can’t sleep,” Jamie says, but that’s not quite right. He’s sleeping. He’s sleeping a lot. The sleeping is not the problem. 

Tyler grunts and twists around more, turning over with some effort to face Jamie.

“You all right?” Tyler shakes his head like he’s trying to wake himself up and Jamie puts a hand on his head, on his messy wild curls.

“Shh,” he says. The less talking the better. Once Tyler gets going he won’t shut up and then _he’ll_ be awake for hours, vibrating in place next to him until the only thing that will calm him is an orgasm or two. “I don’t mean to keep waking you up.”

“s’Okay,” Tyler says. He yawns and smiles at the same time. “Better than Rads.”

Ah yes. Rads losing his shit has become a regular thing. Rads screaming “I’m so fucking sick of this fucking bubble!” down the long, empty hallway at 3am. “Fuck the bubble!” Followed by someone else — Janny maybe — yelling “Fuck IN the bubble.”

Tyler studies Jamie’s face and smiles, soft, knowing.

“Want some help with that?” he says and he means it, Jamie knows, picturing that soft wet mouth on his neck and his nipples and his cock, but he can’t say yes so he smooths a hand over Tyler’s face and hair and eyes, closing them gently under his palm.

“No, dummy,” he says. “I mean _yes_ , but no.”

“I can _hear_ your brain thinking,” Tyler mumbles. “And maybe your dick, too.” 

“My dick doesn’t think,” Jamie says. “That’s the problem.”

Tyler snorts and burrows into Jamie’ chest, head hitting Jamie’s chin and _ow_ , but Jamie stays quiet, puts his hands on Tyler’s back and waits until he thinks he’s fallen asleep again, thinking of boats and water and waves and all the darkness under the calm.

“You need to sleep,” Tyler says after awhile and Jamie laughs and kisses the top of his head and thinks yeah that would be really fucking sweet.

//

This is a plane, Jamie thinks. Then he thinks, I fucking hate planes.

For the amount of flying he does during a season, it’s crazy to think this, but it’s true. Flying involves heights and he hates heights and so he hates planes. He gets through it every year because of sedatives and his phone and Tyler. Tyler sprawled across from him, limbs long and loose, face open and easy. A big hand on his arm, squeezing, a nudge, a grin, an occasional blow job in the bathroom. Whatever helps, Tyler has said over the years, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand.

It _is_ a plane, he sees when he opens his eyes. This time he knows he’s dreaming because this isn’t like any plane he’s been on before, and he’s been on so many planes he’s lost count. For one, it’s empty except for a flight attendant standing at the front between the two aisles. She’s dressed all in grey, and her uniform is fuzzy, like cat fur. She’s just standing there quietly, watching Jamie, who’s sitting halfway back, alone. Jamie looks up and back and side to side. No teammates, no media, no Tyler.

She tilts her head at him and smiles in a questioning way. She has a secret. Jamie wants to know what it is.

“Well?” she says. She’s speaking quietly but he can hear her just fine from so far away.

Jamie frowns. “Well what?” he says.

She keeps smiling and makes a motion behind her.

“He’s waiting,” she says.

“Who?” Jamie says.

“Your in-flight entertainment, of course.”

Jamie nods like he gets it and moves from his seat and down the aisle on feet that feel like they’re made of cement.

“Oh,” he says when he opens the tiny door, so small he doesn’t think he’ll fit through it.

Tyler’s in the airplane bathroom, but it’s not like any bathroom he’s been in. There’s a bed, for one thing. A huge bed covered with a disturbingly patterned red blanket. Tyler is in the bed, though, which makes up for it.

“Took you long enough,” says Tyler. He’s grinning. He has a black eye. It looks really hot.

“I am having a weirdest fucking dreams,” Jamie says.

“Are you sure?” Tyler says.

“Pretty sure,” Jamie says and they both laugh.

Tyler pulls back the ugly stupid blanket like an invitation and his entire body is covered in grey fur like a cat. Tyler blinks. He’s still beautiful though and Jamie wants him as much as ever so he slides in beside him and kisses him soft and slow and hot.

Tyler lets Jamie fuck him and it’s as good as it’s ever been even with the fur.

When they’re done, Jamie lays sprawled on his back, chest heaving, fingers in Tyler’s curls.

“Where are we going?” he says. The plane is still moving, that distinct hum and shudder around him that has filled countless hours of his life.

“Don’t you know?” Tyler says.

Jamie doesn’t, which is why he asked but his question has upset Tyler. Tyler cries. Jamie cries because Tyler is crying. They both cry. Tyler’s eyes are red and his nose is stuffy and suddenly he’s on a Zoom call speaking with media because they’ve lost. They’re flying home and everyone is pretending it’s good, it’s all good, they put up a good fight and they did. That’s the thing, Jamie thinks. They always put up a good fight and it doesn’t even matter because Tyler is upset and that’s making Jamie’s heart hurt.

“Wait,” Jamie says., because he can’t stand seeing Tyler crying. This is _his_ dream. He can say whatever he wants. “I love you,” he says right to Tyler. “I have loved you for so long and I can’t imagine life without you.”

Tyler stops crying. This part is very important. Jamie waits until Tyler is looking right at him. 

“Like I can’t. You’re it. I haven’t told you this yet but I’m gonna marry you. I don’t know how or when yet but I am, ok? I am totally going to fucking marry you and we’ll have kids too. Don’t laugh.”

Tyler doesn’t laugh.

“But we are. Somehow. You’d be the best dad holy shit. But yeah. I just wanted to tell you that. I just. It’s all in me and I sometimes it feels like it’s just gonna come out somehow but this seems like a good time to tell you so I am.”

Tyler isn’t smiling and he looks like he might cry again.

“I love you, too,” he says.

“Good.”

Tyler kisses and kisses him and then Jamie wants to cry because this part is good.

 _Oh you,_ Jamie thinks. 

“Don’t go,” he says.

“Where would I go?” Tyler says. “There’s no other place I’d rather be.”

But then he gets up and starts to walk away and Jamie sits up and kind of freaks out.

“Wait for me,” Jamie says.

Tyler looks back at him. “Why?”

“Because,” Jamie says.

Point one: They’re in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Point two: They’re in the Stanley Cup Finals _together_.

Point three: This is a dream.

Isn’t it?

//

“Ok,” Tyler mutters when Jamie lurches awake and clutches Tyler’s entire body to his in desperation. “Clearly this calls for more drastic measures.”

“I’m sorry,” Jamie says and he means it mostly. He pats Tyler’s head and back and shoulders over and over, willing the tremors and terrors to just go away.

“Here,” Tyler says. He barely opens his eyes. He just shuffles over, climbs on top of Jamie and lies down flat, head tucked into Jamie’s neck, chest to chest, hips touching, thighs touching, knees touching, top to bottom all the way down, heavy and solid and unmoving. Jamie has done this to Tyler over the years, the weight, the solidity, his body pinning Tyler’s body down to the bed, the couch, the floor, calming him when he’s been in a state of agitation that nothing else can get rid of, not even sex. This, however, is the first time Tyler has done it for him. Jamie sees the appeal instantly.

He breathes in as deeply as he can and holds it, lets it go. Over and over. Tyler’s entire body rises and falls with his. They lie like this for awhile in the dark, in the quiet, in the beige, breathing, all their skin and hair and bones touching from top to bottom. There are a lot of things Jamie wants to say but none of them are easy. So he thinks of the one thing Tyler might understand the most.

“I really wanna win,” Jamie says.

“Yeah,” Tyler says.

“I really fucking hate flying,” Jamie whispers.

After a long, long pause, Tyler says, “I know.”

In out, in out. In. Out.

“Go to sleep,” Tyler says.

“Ok,” Jamie says.

//

With a soft rumble and jolt he’s back on the plane.

Jamie looks out the window. He’s so far up he can’t see the ground. He thought the plane portion of his dreams was done, but apparently not.

“Are we cleared for landing?” Tyler says. Jamie looks over. Tyler looks right at him and asks like Jamie might now.

“Uh,” Jamie says. They’re the only ones on the plane this time. No kind, furry attendant. The cockpit door stands wide open with no pilots in sight. “I don’t know.”

There’s a great stomach-churning whoosh. The ground falling out from under his feet. Stomach falling up into his throat.

Tyler nods like this is ok. It’s not ok.The plane is falling, Jamie realizes. That sickening swooping lurch that he’s never quite experienced but has imagined all his life. Falling from the sky with no safety net below.

 _This is the end_ , Jamie thinks. And then he thinks, _Well, at least I’m with Tyler._

“Hang on,” Tyler says against Jamie’s ear, voice warm and low, breath warm and soft. Jamie clutches his arm, buries his face in Tyler’s neck. The plane is falling and twirling now, heading for the ground, or the water, Jamie thinks. He’s not sure where they were flying, or what they were flying over, after all.

“I am,” Jamie says.

“Don’t let go,” Tyler says, like this is even an option. Jamie can feel his bitten short fingernails digging into Tyler’s shirt sleeve. It’s purple. The shirt. Jamie’s pretty sure Tyler doesn’t own a purple shirt. It looks good on him. Jamie wants to tell him but he’s so fucking scared as the plane falls and falls. Tyler’s hand is cupping the back of his head, his fingers spread through his hair.

“Ready?” Tyler says, voice louder than the engines, louder than the scream of metal ripping apart.

 _For what_ , Jamie wants to say. _Ready for what?_ But then he realizes he’s with Tyler and they’re holding each other and the fall doesn’t really feel so bad after all.

Turns out freefalling in an airplane is much like spinning out on ice or being in a relationship with Tyler.

“Yeah,” he whispers into Tyler’s neck. This is some fucking dream, he thinks.

 _Brace, brace, brace,_ he thinks.

“Ok,” Tyler says, squeezing him tight. “Let’s go get ‘em.”

Jamie closes his eyes.

//

He kicks Tyler in the calf, sharp. To his credit, Tyler does not kick him back. He opens one eye and kind of glares instead.

“You do realize we’re playing Game 6 in like…uh…hours.”

Jamie breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth.

“That was a bad one,” Jamie says.

“Did you eat anything weird before we went to bed that you didn’t tell me about?”

In, out, in, out. He braces, then releases,

“You know I love you, right?”

Tyler laughs, soft, soft.

“Oh yeah.” He kisses Jamie’s neck. “It’s about the only thing I know sometimes.”

There are a million ways it could have happened, Jamie thinks, but this is one way it did. It’s a good story, Jamie thinks, one they’ll have to tell people for years. Rooms with adjoining doors. Tyler slipping in late slipping off his clothes slipping into his bed. Lots of kissing, he thinks. Kissing is good. People like to hear about kissing, so he can talk about that, if they ask. The shape of Tyler’s body, though, the feel of it under his fingers, the width of his bones, his skin, well, that’s more personal, and something he might have to think about, if anyone asks.

He’s already halfway to sleep when Tyler curls on his side and tucks into the space Jamie makes for him the one that’s made for him. 

“I’m really tired,” Tyler says as he shifts and bumps his ass up against Jamie’s hips.

“Me too,” Jamie says, because he needs to say something, even if all he’s going to do is keep dreaming.

//

And this is a dream, Jamie thinks.

He’s on a _bus_ and the whole team is sitting behind him, Klinger and Dickie and Rads and Bones and Tyler of course. They’re headed to the final game and they might win, and they might not, and everyone knows this, even if Jamie can’t announce it.

Tyler is sitting right next to him, bobbing his head like he’s listening to some music Jamie can’t hear.

“I’ve wanted it for so long,” Jamie says before he can control his mouth.

“I know,” Tyler says.

“What if we don’t win?”

“Win what?”

Jamie blows out a breath. Even in dreams he can’t express himself the way he wants. Tyler looks right at him though.

“Ok. You don’t win. What then?”

Jamie pauses. “Do you know something I don’t?”

Tyler shrugs. He looks smug. He looks sad. “Maybe not this year.” He pauses. “Would that be ok?”

Jamie open his mouth and then closes it. He doesn’t know. The bus lurches on, moving towards some unknown destination. Jamie thinks about the question and the answer. He’s about to reply when they come to an abrupt, sudden stop.

“This is where you get off, sir,” the bus driver says. The bus driver is really hot. The bus driver is Tyler. He’s wearing a blue uniform with a cap and he’s holding out a hand, polite and formal.

“What?” Jamie says, even though it’s all very clear. He feels slow and stupid.

“This is the end of the line,” Tyler says, smiling with all his teeth. “This is it. You need to leave now.” He’s polite and slightly apologetic but firm. No fucking around here.

“Ok,” Jamie says. He stands up and walks down the narrow aisle. The bus is empty. Tyler holds out his hand and Jamie stares at it a moment before he shakes it.

“It’s been a pleasure,” Tyler says, all formal and shit.

“Yeah,” Jamie says and wants to laugh because this dream Tyler is super pompous and irritating and real Tyler – his Tyler – would hate his fucking guts. “Good. Real cool.”

He stumbles down the three little steps and at the bottom he’s standing on ice. And he’s wearing skates. And Tyler is there, dressed in a pea coat and a toque with red cheeks and red lips and he’s been crying. Or he’s still crying. But he’s smiling, too. Jamie’s heart breaks a little.

“Hey,” Jamie says. He needs to hug him or something.

“Chase me,” Tyler says. He grins and turns and skates and Jamie heads after him without a thought.

Tyler’s crying. Jamie can see tears on his cheeks, tears falling and freezing in the cold. Jamie can feel tears on his own face, cold against the heat of his skin, but it’s Tyler’s tears, Tyler’s red, wet eyes and damp tangled eyelashes that he needs to fix.

“Hey,” he says. He’s trying to skate faster but he’s not moving fast enough, not yet. His thighs are aching and his feet are not fucking moving. Tyler’s getting away and Jamie is starting to panic. He can still see Tyler’s wet, silver-streaked face and he can hear the hitch in Tyler’s voice.

“ _Catch_ me,” Tyler says over his shoulder. He doesn’t seem to be moving his legs any faster but he’s gaining ground. Jamie is falling behind.

How fast can you go, he wonders. How fast can you travel between here and there?

Jamie tilts his face back. It’s snowing. The sky above him is completely white, no clouds, no horizon, no beginning or end. Just white and hazy. Snow is falling so slowly he can see every flake, snow landing on his forehead and cheeks and eyelids. They sizzle and cool and melt one by one. It hardly ever snowed in Victoria growing up and now he’s in Dallas and this is so fucking beautiful he might cry. He and Tyler are skating together in the snow in some imaginary dream landscape and they might win the Cup and they might not and right now it doesn’t matter because it’s so fucking beautiful it doesn’t even matter.

 _I don’t want this to end,_ he thinks. _Let it stay like this. Let it be good, Tyler and me, doing shit like this forever together._

“The only constant is change, sweetie,” was one of his mom’s favourite sayings when he was little. He hated change, _hated_ it. He liked things steady and sure and reliable. Friends moving away, new classrooms each school year, growing up, moving on, all of that sucked. He’d never really understand what she meant back then, fighting back tears when Sam, his best friend through Grades 3 to 6 suddenly moved across the country to fucking Ontario. Who in their right mind would leave British Columbia for Ontario? Well, Sam’s dad, apparently, who’d been transferred and was _excited_ of all things. Don’t go, Jamie wanted to say. Don’t leave me. Sam was sad, too, but bouncing on his feet, excited for the adventure.

This all comes screaming back to him now as Tyler skates and skates, faster and faster, laughing and excited.

“What if we don’t win?” Jamie calls, voice echoing and falling into white, bright air.

Tyler tilts his head back and smiles. “Win what?” Then he turns and keeps skating away.

 _Don’t go_ , Jamie thinks. _Don’t leave me behind_. And if his cheeks are wet, it could be tears, he thinks, or it could be snow.

“Wait,” Jamie says. “Wait for me.”

“I’m waiting,” Tyler says, voice hanging low and clear in the still, frozen air, but he’s still skating, still moving further and further away until Jamie can’t see him at all.

//

This time when he wakes up he reaches wildly for Tyler, hand slapping on the sheets until he finds Tyler’s ribs and back and shoulder, bare and smooth and dry under his fingers.

“Ow?” says Tyler as Jamie pulls hard, pulls him towards him, flush against him. “Oh wow,” Tyler says. “You’re awake again.”

Jamie kisses and kisses and kisses him, and Tyler is warm and pliant and hard muscled. Jamie has all but given up at this point, counts Tyler’s bruises, clutches his hip, his groin, strokes his dick, his balls.

“Ok?” he says, even as Tyler is saying, “Yeah, ok ok. Fuck Yeah.”

He uses his fingers and he’s thorough and kind and gentle but as firm and determined as the goddamn bus driver with his stupid little efficient cap. With the brim. Tyler is open and gasping and desperate, twisting in bleachy sheets, damp and electric and moving. He never stops fucking moving, little twists of movement under every inch of his skin, harnessing electricity in a thunder storm. Jamie covers every inch of him, eases into him, grabs him, clutches at him, breathes him and into him.

“Ok,” Jamie says at the pulse point in Tyler’s neck, mouthing at the vein there, the blood under the skin.

“Yeah,” Tyler says, hands running up and down Jamie’s back, up and down. “Ok.”

Jamie moves and moves, pinning Tyler in place. Tyler braces with everything he’s got and Jamie doesn’t want to hurt him, or hurt him more, and he’s so careful, but he’s so fucking full of everything he feels for Tyler, ready to fill him up and swallow him down, all that friction and sweat and the softness of his mouth and the electricity from his toes on up to the top of his head and then and then.

Jamie fucks him in the middle of the bed, white, slightly sour smelling sheets balled up around them, clutched in Tyler’s fists and Jamie moves above him then in him. Tyler is oddly quiet for him, head twisted to the side and teeth clenched tight.

“Am I hurting you,” Jamie says in horror, stopping mid-stroke. Tyler looks at him, wide-eyed and dazed and amused.

“No,” he says breath catching. “I’m just thinking.”

“Thinking,” Jamie says. His arms are trembling with the effort of holding up all his body weight, hips angled, thighs straining.

Tylers looks surprised. “Yeah,” he says, biting at his lower lip and letting it go. It’s very very red and wet. Jamie leans down and kisses him there, sucking on it for himself because it’s not fair that only Tyler gets to do that.

“Yeah about how much I love you,”

“Well fuck,” Jamie says, words ripping out of his throat. “Ok.” And then he finishes.

“That must have been some dream,” Tyler gasps when it’s over, breath harsh through his nose and open mouth.

Jamie laughs.

“You told me it didn’t matter if we won or not, that you’d love me anyway,” Jamie says.

“Well, duh,” Tyler says. “Sometimes I’m pretty smart you know.”

Jamie agrees.

“I’m going to miss being here,” Tyler whispers into the sweaty, hairy tangle of Jamie’s chest. He doesn’t say anything else. Jamie knows that he doesn’t mean in this particular hotel, in this particular room. He means here, in this time and place away from everything else, from so many responsibilities and daily life and uncertainty and sickness and the world that crowds in on them. Here, with the team and hockey and each other. It’s pretty simple right now, here. He’ll miss it too, he knows. So fucking much.

“You’re not,” Jamie says in a huff because he doesn’t know how to say all that other stuff out loud, with _words_.

“I _am_ ,” Tyler says, then looks up, face shy. “Doing all this stuff together, being together all the time and no one, like, questioning anything about it.”

Which is exactly the right thing to say, Jamie thinks, so he kisses Tyler on the throat, where it’s soft.

“We gotta play today,” Jamie says.

“Uh huh.”

“If we don’t win—”

“Yeah.” Tyler kisses his fingers, his poor, bitten red fingers. “But if we _do_.”

“Yeah,” Jamie says.

“You deserve it,” Tyler says.

“No one owes me a cup,” Jamie says.

“No,” Tyler agrees. “But you still deserve it.”

“ _We_ deserve it,” Jamie says.

“Yeah.” Tyler smiles up at him, face as open and honest and joyous as it ever is and god Jamie loves him so fucking much. “But maybe we don’t win it this year.”

“But.” Tyler echoes it like he already knows. “We _will_ win it. Like. At some point.”

Jamie nods slowly, lets that sink in. “Yeah. We do. We win it.”

“Ok then,” Tyler says pushing his face, warm and rough into Jamie’s chest. It tickles.

So they shower together and Jamie kisses his neck while they jerk each other off and they dress and mess around on their phones and the dreams fade, not completely, but go back, _recede_ like the tide pulling back and sucking at the sand and leaving behind bits and pieces of the ocean, broken shells and seaweed and dead animals.

“You ready?” Tyler asks

Jamie breathes in and nods.

Tonight he might be trying really fucking hard not to cry. Tonight he might be sitting in front of computer screens for the last time in the Fucking Goddamn Bubble while blurry faces ask him how he Feels Right Now and What This Team Means to Him and he’ll be crying and trying so fucking hard to not cry but that’s tonight and this is this morning and Tyler is looking at him and watching and waiting.

“You love me?” he says. It’s supposed to be a joke but it comes out thin and weedy. He blinks a few times. Tyler comes closer, smiling.

“For a long time, yeah,” he says. He kisses Jamie once, twice, on the mouth and on the cheek, then wraps his arms around him and hugs him, really tight. “Yeah.”

Jamie hugs him back, because of course he does.

 _This is the beginning,_ Jamie thinks.

“Ok,” he says. “Ready.”

Tyler smiles, big and blinding and sure. He opens the door and steps out.

“Wait for me,” Jamie says, voice breaking just a tiny bit at the end.

Tyler stops in the doorway and looks back, frowning and smiling at the same time.

“Well, yeah,” he says, and he holds out his hand.

//


End file.
